Currently Playing:

hmm, not sure what to think of this. On one hand businesses should have the right to choose what business they take, but on the other hand refusing customers due to their sexual orientation is not a good precedent.

I guess really it should depend on what the details were. ie. if they wanted a custom made cake then he should be well within his rights to refuse, but if they were just buying a regular cake from the menu or shop window or something then refusing that should be grounds for a discrimination case.

Currently Playing:

I don't have a problem with this. A customized wedding cake could be seen as an endorsement of a practice that the baker does not agree with. If they are uncomfortable with that then they should have the right to respectfully decline. I don't believe that's the same as saying, "no, you can't buy that pie in the display case because you're gay."

Ka-pi96 said:hmm, not sure what to think of this. On one hand businesses should have the right to choose what business they take, but on the other hand refusing customers due to their sexual orientation is not a good precedent.

I guess really it should depend on what the details were. ie. if they wanted a custom made cake then he should be well within his rights to refuse, but if they were just buying a regular cake from the menu or shop window or something then refusing that should be grounds for a discrimination case.

He offered them other goods.. From a VOX article I read before coming here:

"Phillips’s attorneys pointed out that he even offered to provide other kinds of cakes, brownies, or cookies to Craig and Mullins — showing that the issue was not that the men are gay. But he did refuse all wedding cakes to the couple, including cakes that were made for other customers before and a “nondescript” cake"

"To Phillips,his claim that using his artistic skills to make an expressive statement, a wedding endorsement in his own voice and of his own creation, has a significant First Amendment speech component and implicates his deep and sincere religious beliefs."

This isn't really an angle that I thought about upon first hearing about this case. That being said (and without full knowledge of how this individual runs his bakery), I can't really agree that this is a valid argument, because I do not agree that baking a cake for someone constitutes a "wedding endorsement", unless the baker evaluates the strength and validity of the relationships of each couple he services. I cannot imagine that being a common practice among bakers...

Let's see if he can establish precedence by proving he refused to endorse some straight couples by refusing to bake a cake for them, eh?